Summer Bounty: Rhubarb

Man, this summer just flew by!  With my new job being 7AM~5PM (sometimes close to 6PM) there really hasn't been much time for me to cook or bake...or anything else for that matter.  But whatever time I do have I've been using to utilize fresh, tasty summer produce.  I made a delicious dessert with apricots last time.  This time, I used summer rhubarb that my friend gave me.

 



 Rhubarb can range from bright red to celery-green.  He gave me a half red, half green mix, although most were green.  I cut them down to separate the reds from  the green, since mixing them would turn the product unappetizingly brown.

I haven't had much opportunity to work with rhubarb, so this turned into a bit of an experiment.  I decided to make jam out of them, one red, one green....

 I added raspberries to the red rhubarb to intesify the color and to add flavor.  I added vanilla to the green one to make it fragrant and sweeter.  The jam turned out nice, with charasteristic tang of the rhubarb paired with aroma of vanilla.  Both my parents got hooked.

I ended up with several jars, so made a pastry out of them...

Rhubarb Crumb Bar (aka. Rhu-bars).  The tangy rhubarb paired very nicely with the sweet, buttery crust.  Incidentally, when I took it to church, I caught one lady eating the crumbs out of my baking pan.  Glad she liked it, but come on...

Summer Bounty: Apricots

Finally...a long-awaited update!  Now that I'm working full-time at Scheels, it's been one of those work from 8 til 5, go home, eat dinner, then crash kinda days.  So my baking has been limited to weekends, which is already crammed with a family ritual trip to farmer's market, a week's worth of laundry, cleaning, maybe shopping, and maybe going to the gym.

On one of the trips to farmer's market, I found a vendor who had a box of fresh apricots for $6.  The entire thing weighed around 10 lbs, so it was a really good deal!

We didn't have much luck with our apricots this year, so I was glad to be able to get a stockpile of these little guys.  I froze about a half of them (for a smoothie or a sorbet), made apricot jam with a quarter, and the remaining quarter into a Sunday dessert.  Besiades, we had to have a celebration for Dad's successful surgery.  So here it is....Apricot-Almond Tart. 

This tart has a flaky, buttery puff pastry base, filled with pistachio-almond cream, topped with fresh apricots, then baked til golden.  I finished it with caramel sauce, chopped pistachios, and powdered sugar.  It's basically the same thing as Pear-Almond Tart, except puff pastry instead of sweet tart crust is used here.

This was my first time making a blitz puff pastry, and I must say, I love it!  It puffed up into the flakiest pastry, providing a light, yet buttery base for the sweet, rich almond cream filling, balanced by the flowery, fruity tang of the apricots. 

My favorite time of the year has arrived, bringing with it an abundance of produce!  Can't wait til next week to see what the farmers will dish out!